More shameless self-promotion: Logos, logos and more logos

We are known in the industry for our logos. So we would like to brag to you that most of them have won awards and helped our clients reach new heights. As a design firm, if we had a choice for our preferred work, it would be logo design. It’s hard to design a logo that looks like it was easy to develop but when you get it right, the satisfaction is worth the effort.

RAPP ON THIS: The fair use marass

As always, our friendly neighborhood intellectual property lawyer Paul Rapp has something to say in a smart and approachable way. Click here for an article he wrote trying to explain what "fair use" means. Happy reading!

FREE shameless self-promotion

Like everyone else in the country, we’re looking at each other and wondering how our company will weather the growing financial crisis. The best way to handle this, we decided, is to be proactive. So we’re out campaigning for work!

What can we do for you?

• Develop creative ways to get your customers active again.

• Design a brand that people will remember with a logo that will last.

• Cut through the hype of internet marketing.

• Reduce printing costs by using multi-channel strategies.

• Work as an off-site extension of your company.

• Set up an e-mail campaign newsletter template.

• Create a template system for all your marketing needs and you can manage it yourself.

• Create a flash animation to jazz up your Web site or presentation.

• Update the look of your Web site not re-create it.

• Product and location photography.

• Help you review your marketing budget and make it more efficient, effective and last longer.

FREE marketing and business ideas

These days marketing should be more transparent and cross-promotional. In order for everyone to prosper, helping each other do business in new ways is essential. It’s where it’s at baby!

• Cross-promote with businesses that share the same client base.

• Write engaging press releases about your employees (e.g., the personal achievement of an employee like being the first in their family to graduate from college or climb Mt. Everest)

• Start a blog and engage only your clients. What do they want from you? What can you do better? Maybe they could post a picture of your product in use at their house? Answer their questions? Reward your clients when they offer a great idea? Satisfy them when they aren’t happy and let everyone see how you made them happy again?

• Help your clients get business. Be transparent, help them, they will help you.

• Read our blog ;)

• Don’t pay rent. Rent a van. Create a business model that’s on the road. Sell or distribute anything from the trunk. Make-up, clothing, vacations, anything that someone wouldn’t expect.

• The right place at the right time business. Your business moves from one location to another as the market demands and uses vacant storefronts for a month or 2 at a time.

• Put 2 businesses together that you wouldn’t expect. Maybe a bar and a wide screen TV in a department store so your husband can sit-down and have a drink while you're shopping. Think of it, he would be happy to come and you could shop through the Superbowl.

• Create a new business model that caters to the “convenient” factor. Like a ½ hour babysitter service when you have to make that quick run to the store or the bank.

Links to FREE stuff online

Some stuff we endorse and we say so by adding a happy face. Others we don't know enough about. Users always beware when you see the word ‘free.’

☺ Google offers lots of free online software that rivals popular alternatives including word processing, spreadsheets, image management, calendar, drawing, and translation. If you have staff working in more than one location, they can access and edit documents online without having to email or transfer via ftp.

Freeware software top 100: Need we say more?

☺ Thelaw.com: Free legal advice and forms

☺ VerticalResponse.com: If you’re a non-for-profit entity, go to VerticalResponse.com. Give them proof of your non-for-profit status and they’ll let you send up to 10,000 e-mails a month for free.

☺ JustGive: is committed to helping nonprofits by offering them online donation tools to increase awareness and donations to their organizations. Their tools can directly help you increase your fund raising.

Planware.org: free software business plans, marketing plans, strategic plans, online planning tools, excel templates for financial forms

☺ Free-press-release.com: Free Press Releases

Thefreesite-whitepapers.tradepub.com: White papers and trade publications

Free-internet.name: Free Internet access

☺ Dafont.com: Free fonts

Thefreemusicdirectory.com: Free music

☺ Freeonlinegames.com: Just in case you need a little distraction during your day.

Freerice.com: For each answer you get right, we donate 20 grains of rice through the UN World Food Program to help end hunger.

☺ Marketingprofs.com: Free trial offer for a wealth of marketing information and case studies.

☺ Skype.com: Free phone calls.

☺ Yousendit.com: Free ftp service to send your large files or photos via the web.

☺ About.com: Free Graphic Design Basics tutorial

☺ Paul-Rand.com: Free thoughts on design by Paul Rand, one of the best graphic designers ever.

☺ Freestufftimes: A blog with links to more free stuff.

Design Ideas Guaranteed to Get People to Your Site

Marketing Sherpa posted an interesting piece listing the most effective things you can do to increase response ratings on your site. The number one thing was to include a photo of a person, the number two thing...read more.

Save the date: 2008 Art Studio Views

It's official. The maps are printed and everything is ready to go for the 2008 Inaugural Art Studio views of the Rhinebeck and Red Hook areas. Saturday 10-18 and Sunday 10-19 from 11-5 each day. Visit artsnortherndutchess.org for more information or download the map. Come and see our table across from the bandstand at Hardscrabble Day in Red Hook this Saturday 9/20. Send the link to your friends, art lovers and especially collectors ;)

Special thanks to our Art Studio View sponsors:
Rhinebeck Savings Bank
Rhinecliff Hotel
Keller Williams, Suzanne Stevens
Namaro Graphic Designs
Cross River Fine Art
Rising Tide Communications

Special thanks to everyone else. Now the hard work begins!!!

Diana Ayton-Shenker
Doris Cultraro
Nadine Robbins
Elizabeth Watt
Joel Weisbrod
Joanne Klein
Clive Jacobson
France Menk
All the Artists
Susie Linn
Dutchess County Arts Council
Rhinebeck Area Chamber of Commerce